Travelink Bags Adventure Travel Specialist

Tour operator systems provider Travelink
has signed a five-year technology deal with Travelbag Adventures, the specialist tour operator of the Travelbag group. The å£250,000 contract covers front and back office systems to replace manual procedures and improve availability information.

The tour operator expects to realise productivity gains of about 20 percent by automating a range of manual processes. This will allow staff to concentrate on sales and service, reducing administration time as the business continues to expand.

It also aims to boost flexibility by using the system to combine packages, expanding its range of holiday options more efficiently.

“The soft adventure market is picking up again after SARS and the second Gulf conflict, but these events really put productivity issues smack bang in the spotlight,” said Mark Wright, managing director of Travelbag Adventures. “We are using Travelink to boost productivity wherever we can.”

The Travelink system will help the tour operator enhance its marketing initiatives by pulling customer data and presenting this for sales analysis. Wright said he expected customer service levels to improve as well, with the system generating all customer literature.

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“Along with productivity gains, we want to use Travelink to make our customer facing processes as good as they can possibly be,” Wright said.

Travelink managing director David Jones said his new customer was using a tailored version of his company’s generic browser-based system, with “truckloads” of functionality. Travelink won the Travelbag Adventures business against a field of nine other system providers.

“They are a leading provider, but they were also flexible enough to adapt their product to meet our very specific needs,” Wright said.

Jones says this is a trend technology suppliers need to watch carefully.

“Although few specialist tour operators are as complex as Travelbag Adventures, we are seeing an increasing requirement for systems that are tailored to meet individual tour operators’ needs. This trend will have huge implications for the development and flexibility of generic systems in the future.”